PanThese Are the Things I Love, and I Want to Share Them With You

Post-rock has a great deal to answer for. It's a genre littered with sentimental indulgence, hammy political overtones and songs so long they've seen entire civilizations rise and fall, possibly out of sheer boredom. Armed with yearning soundscapes and an album title fit to decimate your word count, there's little on paper to relieve Pan of such concerns. But, to the Peter Pan-loving quartet's credit, their debut LP jettisons earnest slogs for a streamlined set of orchestral hysterics. It's a blessing and curse, naturally. Wild, flourishing guitars that sound like sad dragons dying majestically ("Arkansas," "The Things They Can't Take Away" and "Helen and Francis") are great; 40 minutes of major-key happy endings? Less so. These Are the Things I Love offers a pertinent lesson in the pitfalls of living purely in pursuit of, as the band put it, "happy thoughts" — some people are just going to find you annoying. If Pan are smart, however, all that'll be water off a duck's back.
(Team Clermont)